3:51pm: The injury will not require surgery and is considered “weeks thing, not a months thing,” Matt Gelb of The Athletic was among those to tweet.
2:14pm: The Phillies announced on Thursday that they’ve placed Rhys Hoskins on the DL with a fractured jaw and recalled outfield prospect Dylan Cozens from Triple-A Lehigh Valley in his place. Additionally, the Phils recalled right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. and cleared a spot on the roster by designating fellow righty Drew Hutchison for assignment.
Hoskins incurred the fracture on Monday this week when he fouled a ball into his jaw and was forced to exit the game. Initial x-rays proved to be negative, it seems, as Hoskins somewhat remarkably hit a pinch-hit double a day later on Tuesday. However, a CT scan revealed the fracture last night. At the time, he was reportedly set to return to Philadelphia for further evaluation by an oral surgeon. The Phillies have yet to announce the findings of that exam, though surgery was at least mentioned as a possible option.
Until the Phils make that announcement, there’s no way of knowing just how long Hoskins will be sidelined. In his absence, though, the organization will turn to former Cozens, the former second-rounder who has long held intrigue due to his light-tower power but has also displayed considerable struggles making contact in Triple-A.
It’s the first call to the Majors for the 23-year-old Cozens, who garnered plenty of attention with a 40-homer campaign as a 22-year-old in Double-A. Cozens posted an overall .276/.350/.591 batting line that season in a year which he and Hoskins were teammates who served as a source of great excitement for Phils fans. However, while Hoskins ascended to the Majors late in 2017 and took the big leagues by storm over the season’s final two months, Cozens struggled with a strikeout rate north of 35 percent in Triple-A. Overall, between 2017 and 2018, he’s batted just .214/.307/.424 with a 36.4 percent strikeout rate in 739 PAs at the Triple-A level.
With Hoskins on the shelf, the Phils could utilize Nick Williams, Odubel Herrera and Aaron Altherr as the primary outfielders, although given Altherr’s struggles against righties, perhaps the makings of a corner-outfield platoon are present at Citizens Bank Park.
As for Hutchison, the 27-year-old made the Opening Day roster after coming to camp on a minor league deal, but he’s scarcely been used by skipper Gabe Kapler in recent weeks. Hutchison posted a 2.76 ERA with a 16-to-8 K/BB ratio in 16 1/3 innings of relief from Opening Day through May 4, but he appeared just two more times over the remainder of the month. The Cardinals tagged him for five runs in a long relief appearance on May 18, and he allowed a run in two innings to the Dodgers yesterday.
In all, Hutchison has a 4.64 ERA with 8.0 K/9 and 5.5 BB/9 in 21 1/3 innings this season. He has experience starting in the Majors and is earning a fairly minimal salary, so perhaps a club in need of some rotation depth or a long man in the ’pen would be interested in adding him to its ranks, be it via waivers or a minor trade.
Honestly, Hoskins could probably use a few weeks on the shelf with how he’s been hitting this year.
Now the Pirates can get their future Cy Young in the rough back.
Or the Blue Jays….
So the bullpen just got better at least.
Maybe when Hoskins comes back Kapler can bat him where he belongs or at least where he is more comfortable/accustomed to (3-4-5-6, whatever). It’s unfair enough he’s playing the outfield but more importantly he’s not a #2 hitter. When the season began, Kapler said, “the statistics show that your best player should bat second”. Not sure if he’s noticed the past 150 years of baseball but “your best player” doesn’t bat second, usually, unless there are no other options or your team is stacked. In the past few weeks he has backed off his statement by saying, “ONE of your best players should bat second”. Sometimes the wheel is just a wheel and doesn’t need to be re-invented. I know it will look more impressive for him personally if Hoskins does well in the 2 spot but it’s not fair to sacrifice a player to make yourself look smarter than everyone else, if it works.
Hopefully, someone will point out the OBP of Herrera and Hernandez (slightly higher than Hoskins currently) and how guys that get on base the most should bat closer to the top of the lineup. Your #2 hitter shouldn’t be the guy who’s leading your team in strikeouts and will probably (prior to injury perhaps) lead your team in homers.
I agree. He should be hitting 5th. Your top 2 on base guys should bat 1-2 and your high batting average bats 3. Then your power is 4-6.
“Your top 2 on base guys should bat 1-2”
Which is the answer to the question: Why is Hoskins batting second?
From season start through 4/29 (with the exception of on PA) he hit 4th and slashed .318/.468/.553. I guess he wasn’t their best hitter then. He was moved to 2nd for 8 games and slashed .156/.289/.313.
Back to 4th for 3 games at .200/.333/.300. Back to 2nd for a game going 1 for 5 followed but a 1 for 5 game hitting 4th.
The last 10 games (not counting one PH) he has hit 2nd to the tune of .125/.192/.229
I believe, unless I’m missing someone, only Hernandez and Herrera have a higher OBP this year than Hoskins’ .363
About half the teams in baseball bat their best hitters 2nd; including Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Eric Hosmer and Kris Bryant.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that maybe, just maybe we should take seriously the thoughts of teams and managers that have put time and effort into researching what works in the modern environment, instead of just blindly following traditions from the pre-dead-ball era.
One problem, in 19 games hitting 2nd he has slashed .133/.235/.267 and hitting 4th .303/.449/.515. Which was more productive?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the reason that you want your best hitter,one who can drive in the runs that ultimately win games,in the #4 spot is that you have your three best onbase hitters in front of him.At #2,you have the lead off man and the pitcher(in the NL) and the #8 hitter.Which one of these two groups would you think gets on base much more often?
It seems to me that there are something to be said for some traditions.
Batting 2nd is for scrubs, which is why that silly fish guy hits 2nd in Anaheim.
Rhys Hoskins is 5 months younger than Bryce Harper.
Five months.
Genuflect on that. You’ll discover that it was well worth your time.
Paste this on every article, and then explain how it pertains please.
Yet Aaron Judge bats second for the Yankees so, yeah.
Right. Because Judge leads the Yankees in OBP. He should be batting at the top part of the lineup. He also has a guy who hit 50 homers last year batting after him. Trout bats second, he also leads his team in OBP and has a guy with 600 career homers hitting after him in the lineup. Kris Bryant bats second, he also leads his team in OBP and has a guy (Rizzo) who has hit 30+ homers 4 years in a row hitting after him. Eric Hosmer and Bryce Harper lead their teams in OBP too. If we believe that Hoskins will have a higher OBP than both Hernandez and Herrera then he should bat second but I think his power bat (based on a small sample from last year) is needed a bit lower in this particular lineup…where he is more comfortable in hitting.
Giants should swoop on Hutch……….yes their pitching is that bad
I followed him once he got to the Pirates and he really never had much of a chance with them as they had better and younger pitchers.
I think he had some good games with Toronto but was inconsistent,but mostly bad.
He somewhat surprisingly pitched reasonably well this year with Philadelphia except for the one bad game this month.
I think that he has a chance to be a decent fifth starter with a rebuilding team.He did not seem to have the fire in his belly but if he gets another chance I think that he needs to take advantage of it.
In Toronto he showed flashes of being a really good starting pitcher. Not an ace, but good. Think AJ Burnett-lite.
Orioles should take a flier. Short trip down the road for Hutchison and the birds can send mike wright or Araujo packing. Would’ve said Wright for sure a few weeks ago, but araujo isn’t ready to pitch in the big leagues and I’m not sure he’s worth stashing.
Buck likes aruaju.
He’s been getting lit up in low leverage situations. We have nothing to play for this year but I don’t think it helps him or us to get rocked because he’s not ready.
Quite frankly he needs to be ready because I do not think that he is going to get many more chances.If he gets into a situation where he knows he will get a reasonable chance over a decent period of time I think that he would have a chance to be a decent pitcher.One of the few good things about having such a poor start for a team is to find out whether such players can play.